Ruling Class Arrogance

Doo Doo Economics has an excellent post dissecting the arrogance of prominent tax cheat Timothy Geithner, in his speech at Harvard on May 17. He lies about the debt ceiling, mischaracterizes the constitution, and tells us peons, too bad, Obama's "reforms" have screwed you forever. And oh by the way, I am so much smarter than all of you. Great analysis by a fellow SLOB. Time to remind ourselves of what we can accomplish when we rise up against oppression.

California Tax Day Tea Party from Lipstick Underground on Vimeo.

Hooray For Newspapers - Again

Dean and I have both complained about newspapers not performing the political function envisioned by the founders. Just when we think all hope is lost, they uncover stories about pensions being the source of San Diego's budget woes, publicizing teacher impact on test scores, and uncovering the outrageous salaries for public officials in Bell, CA. Now the LA Times is confirming what we all thought, public officials in D.C. think themselves above the laws that ordinary Americans must obey. Not just Geithner, but 41 other White House aides owe the federal government $831,000 in taxes and federal employees owe the feds a whopping $1 billion. From the LA Times:

The Post's T.W. Farnum did some research and found that out of the total sum, just 638 workers on Capitol Hill owe the IRS $9.3 million in back taxes. As in, overdue. The IRS gets stiffed by the legislative body that controls its budget. How Washington works.
. . . Privacy laws prevent release of individual tax delinquents' names. But we do know that as of the end of 2009, 41 people inside Obama's very own White House owe the government they're allegedly running a total of $831,055 in back taxes. That would cover a lot of special chocolate desserts in the White House Mess.

Exit question "Can you define Ruling Class?"